Organization and Performance of Cotton Sectors in Africa ... - infoDev

made royalty payments to CRI. When state funding for CRI collapsed after2001, these royalty payments became increasingly important, albeit inadequateto sustain a dynamic program. Quton, therefore, began to invest in its ownresearch capability, which is now reckoned to surpass that of CRI. As of early2007, Quton was preparing to release the first products of its in-house researchactivity, and there was also talk of Quton taking over the assets of CRI. Quton’sinvestment first in CRI and later in its own research capacity reflects the strongrecognition within Zimbabwe of the importance of productivity-enhancingresearch. However, it is no coincidence that it has occurred in a concentratedsector where COTTCO, as the largest firm, is also the biggest beneficiary ofnational research outputs.Historically, the parastatals in WCA were heavily involved in funding cottonresearch. One consequence of this involvement was the focus within breedingprograms on varieties with higher ginning outturn ratios (GORs) that lead toimproved ginning margins, rather than on farm yield. In theory, higher ginningmargins can be passed on to farmers, but it is not clear that farmers wouldhave made this their breeding priority had they been consulted at the time.Also, GOR is less visible to farmers than it is to ginners and is less visible tofarmers than is farm yield. Both these characteristics suggest that, especiallywhere ginners have some market power, farmers will benefit more fromincreases in farm yields than from increases in GOR. Since 2000, the mainorganizational change in WCA has been a trend toward joint financing ofresearch by all stakeholders through the interprofessional organizations set upin response to financial crises.Research systems in WCA and ESA will increasingly have to respond todemand from international traders and spinners to take into account a morecomplex set of fiber quality parameters in variety selection (chapter 7).Increasing the number of parameters can dramatically complicate breedingprograms, suggesting even greater need for increased resources for varietalresearch in these countries. 69 Also, because economies of scale in research maybe high where several countries share common agro-ecological conditions,these more complex demands on breeders provide additional arguments forstrengthening regional collaboration in these programs.CONCLUSIONSOverall, research in African cotton systems is underperforming, as evidencedprimarily by the slow rate of yield growth and technology adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa relative to other major cotton growing areas of the world. Reasonsfor this poor performance include the limited resources invested in cottonresearch, lack of incentives and accountability for publicly funded researchers,weak links among researchers in different countries, and the limited responsivenessof cotton research programs to ginners and farmers. Governments haveCOTTON RESEARCH 111